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359. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Gail Honeyman

Genre:  Fiction

327 pages, published May 9, 2017

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Eleanor Oliphant is a woman who is hard to pin down. She is socially awkward and usually say exactly what she’s thinking.  Her life is planned around work with weekends reserved for frozen pizza, vodka, and phone calls with her imprisoned mum.  All of this changes when she meets Raymond, the IT guy from her office.  When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living.

Quotes 

“If someone asks you how you are, you are meant to say FINE. You are not meant to say that you cried yourself to sleep last night because you hadn’t spoken to another person for two consecutive days. FINE is what you say.”

 

“in principle and reality, libraries are life-enhancing palaces of wonder.”

 

“There are days when I feel so lightly connected to the earth that the threads that tether me to the planet are gossamer thin, spun sugar. A strong gust of wind could dislodge me completely, and I’d lift off and blow away, like one of those seeds in a dandelion clock. The threads tighten slightly from Monday to Friday.”

 

“Sometimes you simply needed someone kind to sit with you while you deal with things.”

 

“Although it’s good to try new things and to keep an open mind, it’s also extremely important to stay true to who you really are.”

 

“A philosophical question: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? And if a woman who’s wholly alone occasionally talks to a pot plant, is she certifiable? I think that it is perfectly normal to talk to oneself occasionally. It’s not as though I’m expecting a reply. I’m fully aware that Polly is a houseplant.”

 

“I find lateness exceptionally rude; it’s so disrespectful, implying unambiguously that you consider yourself and your own time to be so much more valuable than the other person’s.”

 

“Did men ever look in the mirror, I wondered, and find themselves wanting in deeply fundamental ways? When they opened a newspaper or watched a film, were they presented with nothing but exceptionally handsome young men, and did this make them feel intimidated, inferior, because they were not as young, not as handsome? Did they then read newspaper articles ridiculing those same handsome men if they gained weight or wore something unflattering?”

 

“She had tried to steer me towards vertiginous heels again – why are these people so incredibly keen on crippling their female customers? I began to wonder if cobblers and chiropractors had established some fiendish cartel.”

 

“Obscenity is the distinguishing hallmark of a sadly limited vocabulary.”

 

“No thank you,” I said. “I don’t want to accept a drink from you, because then I would be obliged to purchase one for you in return, and I’m afraid I’m simply not interested in spending two drinks’ worth of time with you.”

 

“These days, loneliness is the new cancer–-a shameful, embarrassing thing, brought upon yourself in some obscure way. A fearful, incurable thing, so horrifying that you dare not mention it; other people don’t want to hear the word spoken aloud for fear that they might too be afflicted, or that it might tempt fate into visiting a similar horror upon them.”

 

“I wasn’t good at pretending, that was the thing. After what had happened in that burning house, given what went on there, I could see no point in being anything other than truthful with the world. I had, literally, nothing left to lose. But, by careful observation from the sidelines, I’d worked out that social success is often built on pretending just a little. Popular people sometimes have to laugh at things they don’t find very funny, or do things they don’t particularly want to, with people whose company they don’t particularly enjoy. Not me. I had decided, years ago, that if the choice was between that or flying solo, then I’d fly solo. It was safer that way. Grief is the price we pay for love, so they say. The price is far too high.”

 

“There are scars on my heart, just as thick, as disfiguring as those on my face. I know they’re there. I hope some undamaged tissue remains, a patch through which love can come in and flow out.”

 

“I have been waiting for death all my life. I do not mean that I actively wish to die, just that I do not really want to be alive.”

 

“I’m not sure I’d like to be burned. I think I might like to be fed to zoo animals. It would be both environmentally friendly and a lovely treat for the larger carnivores. Could you request that?” 

My Take

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine reminded me a lot of The Rosie Project.  Both books are about unconventional characters struggling to make sense of a world that was not made for them.  I enjoyed this book, especially the humorous and poignant insights of the title character.  It all expectedly wraps up neatly at the end, but it is an enjoyable time getting there.

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355. Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin…Every Inch of It

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Brittany Gibbons

Genre:  Non Fiction, Memoir, Humor

240 pages, published May 19, 2015

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Fat Girl Walking is a memoir written by Brittany Gibbons, a size 18 blogger who writes about her life long struggle with weight and acceptance of her body.  She wore a bikini in Times Square and stripped down to her underwear and bra for a Ted Talk on body image to make a point about how real women look and how they need to learn to love their bodies.

Quotes 

“Instead, I realized that people are allowed to say whatever they want to me about my weight, but it’s entirely up to me how much power I let those words have over me. I’m not obligated or required to accept negative commentary about my looks. I’m not less confident or honest for ignoring that it’s there. I’m just confident enough to know it’s not true.”

 

“Side note: is anyone else grateful social media wasn’t a thing when they were a teenager? It’s like Draco Malfoy and all three Heathers smooshed into one invisible organism that thrives on Internet memes and passive aggression.”

 

“…the thing about dieting is that it’s really horrible and boring for a longer period of time than feeling pretty in small jeans feels. That’s just basic math.”

 

“Just remember this: college is the most expensive place to be confused in the whole entire world.”

 

“Don’t go to college. It’s the absolute worst and it will ruin your life and you’ll never have good enough credit to own things, ever. Learn a trade or invent Facebook. College is for dummies.”

 

“Well, unless I’m sitting atop you, what I weigh is really none of your business.”

 

“I banned the use of fat as a slur hurled toward myself and strangers. I’m not saying I don’t see fat; saying that is akin to the people who make grand statements about ‘not seeing color.’ Seeing color doesn’t mean you’re a racist. It means your eyes work, but that you are hopefully able to see color not for a discrepancy in normal, but as a beautiful component of diversity.”

 

“You are going to fail at a lot of things, so when you do, do it on such a grand scale that half the room gives you a standing ovation, and the other half gives you the middle finger.” 

My Take

Brittany Gibbons has a unique, humorous voice and I enjoyed her memoir.  A breezy, quick read that will give you some empathy for the overweight of the world.

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354. Lethal White

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Crime

650 pages, published September 18, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Lethal White is J.K. Rowling’s fourth book featuring Private Investigator Cormoran Strike and his partner Robin Ellacott.  It opens with Billy, a mentally troubled young man, telling Strike “I seen a kid killed…He strangled it, up by the horse.”  This statement sets Strike and Ellacot off on a hunt that turns into a murder investigation of a member of Parliament.

Quotes 

“Pretending you’re OK when you aren’t isn’t strength.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” Robin contradicted him. The champagne had fizzed on her tongue and seemed to give her courage even before it hit her brain. “Sometimes, acting as though you’re all right, makes you all right. Sometimes you’ve got to slap on a brave face and walk out into the world, and after a while it isn’t an act anymore, it’s who you are. If I’d waited to feel ready to leave my room after—you know,” she said, “I’d still be in there. I had to leave before I was ready.”

 

“I was in therapy for a bit. Now I do CBT exercises.” “Do you, though?” Strike asked mildly. “Because I bought vegetarian bacon a week ago, but it’s not making me any healthier, just sitting there in the fridge.”

 

“Life had taught him that a great and powerful love could be felt for the most apparently unworthy people, a circumstance that ought, after all, to give everybody consolation.”

 

“How often were you aware, while it happened, that you were living an hour that would change the course of your life forever?”

 

“Because men’s crimes are always ours in the final analysis, aren’t they, Mr. Strike? Ultimate responsibility always lies with the woman, who should have stopped it, who should have acted, who must have known. Your failings are really our failings, aren’t they? Because the proper role of the woman is carer, and there’s nothing lower in this whole world than a bad mother.”

 

“The feel of her was both new and familiar, as though he had held her a long time ago, as though he had missed it without knowing it for years.”

 

“As suddenly as they had reached for each other, they broke apart. Tears were rolling down Robin’s face. For one moment of madness, Strike yearned to say, “Come with me”, but there are words that can never be unsaid or forgotten, and those, he knew, were some of them.”

 

“I think marriage is nearly always an unfathomable entity, even to the people inside it. It took this… all of this mess… to make me realize I can’t go on. I don’t really know when I stopped loving him,”

 

“Look me in the eye and tell me you’ve loved anyone, since, like you loved me.”

“No, I haven’t,” he said, “and thank fuck for that.” 

My Take

The reason to read Lethal White isn’t the mystery at its core, which is fine but a bit convoluted at times.  The reason to read it is the superb portrait painted by J.K. Rowling of Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacot, the two main, recurring characters in the Cormoran Strike series.  They are so richly drawn and so accessible that it makes reading the book worthwhile.

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348. The Sentence is Death

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Anthony Horowitz

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Crime

384 pages, published June 4, 2019

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

The Sentence is Death is the second in Anthony Horowitz’s bestselling series starring Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne and himself.  “You shouldn’t be here. It’s too late . . . “

were the last recorded words of successful celebrity-divorce lawyer Richard Pryce, found in his house, bludgeoned to death a £3,000 bottle of wine.  Painted on the wall by the body were three digits.  Enter PI Hawthorne and Anthony Horowitz as they follow a series of bizarre leads to track down the killer.

Quotes 

“I’ve met police dogs with more intelligence than those two. You could tell them everything we’ve done, down to the last word, and they’d still end up running around in a circle, sniffing each other’s arses.” 

My Take

I had a hard time following all of the twists and turns of this mystery.  Part of the problem was that I listened to the audio version, so I couldn’t re-read key passages that contained important clues.  Not quite as good as Magpie Murders which is my favorite mystery of the last ten years, but still a good read.

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345. The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Stuart Taylor, KC Johnson

Genre:  Non Fiction, Public Policy, Law

384 pages, published May 22, 2018

Reading Format:  e-Book on Hoopla

Summary

The Campus Rape Frenzy is an investigative look into changes in the universities adjudicated sexual assault cases during the Obama/Biden years and the complicity of the media in falsely portraying campuses as hotbeds of violent crime against women.  Taylor and Johnson painstakingly debunk these claims and show how federal bureaucrats forced colleges and universities to essentially presume the guilt of accused students. The result has been a widespread disregard of such bedrock American principles as the presumption of innocence and due process.

Quotes 

 

 

My Take

Reading this book made me very angry.  As an attorney, I have always placed a huge value on the importance of due process to the functioning of our country.  The fact that numerous young men are being expelled from college and having their lives ruined as the result of consensual sexual encounters and are not given the opportunity to confront their accusers or adequately defend themselves is a travesty of justice.  A good companion book is Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, also by Stuart Taylor.

 

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344. Then She Was Gone

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Lisa Jewel

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Thriller

359 pages, published April 17, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Hoopla

Summary

Then She Was Gone tells the story of Laurel whose 15 year old daughter Ellie disappears.  Ten years later, Laurel is a divorced woman in her early 50’s who starts dating a charming stranger named Floyd whose 9 year old daughter Poppy is a precocious, pretty and reminiscent of Ellie.  Things then take a dark and unexpected turn.

Quotes 

“When I read a book it feels like real life and when I put the book down it’s like I go back into the dream.”

 

“I remember being twenty-one and thinking that my personality was a solid thing, that me was set in stone, that I would always feel what I felt and believe what I believed. But now I know that me is fluid and shape-changing.”

 

“Did you know that the parts of the brain involved in decision-making aren’t fully developed until you’re twenty-five years old?”

 

“If she could rewind the timeline, untwist it and roll it back the other way like a ball of wool, she’d see the knots in the yarn, the warning signs. Looking at it backward it was obvious all along.”

 

“If she could rewind the timeline, untwist it and roll it back the other way like a ball of wool, she’d see the knots in the yarn, the warning signs. Looking at it backward it was obvious all along.”

 

“That was how she’d once viewed her perfect life: as a series of bad smells and unfulfilled duties, petty worries and late bills.”

 

“People try and make out there’s a greater purpose, a secret meaning, that it all means something. And it doesn’t.”

 

“She’d never worked out how he’d done it, how he’d found that healthy pink part of himself among the wreckage of everything else. But she didn’t blame him. Not in the least. She wished she could do the same; she wished she could pack a couple of large suitcases and say good-bye to herself, wish herself a good life, thank herself for all the memories, look fondly upon herself for just one long, lingering moment and then shut the door quietly, chin up, morning sun playing hopefully on the crown of her head, a bright new future awaiting her. She would do it in a flash. She really would.” 

My Take

Then She Was Gone was a quick, captivating read.  Author Lisa Jewell does a particularly good job with the main character Laurel and her struggles to keep living after her 15 year old daughter disappears.  There are also several twists that kept me turning the pages of this book.

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337. Still Me

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Jojo Moyes

Genre:  Fiction, Romance

469 pages, published October 23, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Still Me is the third installment in the story of Louisa Clark.  Having recovered from the devasting loss of Will Traynor (chronicled in Me Before You) and still in thrall to her new romance with paramedic Sam Fielding (chronicled in After You), Louisa accepts a job to serve as a companion to Agnes, the much younger, new wife of uber wealthy New Yorker Leonard Gopnik.  Louisa tries to have it all, an adventure in New York while holding onto her transatlantic relationship with Sam whom she left behind in Britain.  When she meets Joshua Ryan, a man who reminds her of first love Will Traynor, Louisa must make decisions that will impact the rest of her life.

Quotes 

“I thought about how you’re shaped so much by the people who surround you, and how careful you have to be in choosing them for this exact reason, and then I thought, despite all that, in the end maybe you have to lose them all in order to truly find yourself.”

 

“Books are what teach you about life. Books teach you empathy. But you can’t buy books if you barely got enough to make rent. So that library is a vital resource! You shut a library, Louisa, you don’t just shut down a building, you shut down hope.”

 

“All this nonsense about women having it all. We never could and we never shall. Women always have to make the difficult choices. But there is a great consolation in simply doing something you love.”

 

“You always have one foot in two places. You can never be truly happy because, from the moment you leave, you are two selves, and wherever you are one half of you is always calling to the other.”

 

“If someone likes you, they will stay with you; if they don’t like you enough to stay with you, they aren’t worth being with anyway.”

 

“you can hang on to your hurt out of some misplaced sense of pride, or you can just let go and relish whatever precious time you have.”

 

“You had to seize the day. You had to embrace opportunities as they came. You had to be the kind of person who said yes.” 

My Take

I’m big fan of Jojo Moyes, especially her books featuring the down to earth, very likeable, irreverent Louisa Clark.  While not quite as good as the first two in the series (Me Before You and After You), I still really enjoyed this fun, escapist read.  Perfect for the beach.

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336. On Calvary’s Hill: 40 Readings for the Easter Season

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Karen Reader

Author:   Max Lucado

Genre:  Non Fiction, Theology, Christian

144 pages, published October 24, 1999

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

On Calvary’s Hill is a 40 day Devotional leading up to Easter chronicling the passion of Christ and exploring his final days.

Quotes 

“Why is the cross the symbol of our faith? To find the answer, look no further than the cross itself. Its design couldn’t be simpler. One beam horizontal—the other vertical. One reaches out—like God’s love. The other reaches up—as does God’s holiness. One represents the width of his love; the other reflects the height of his holiness. The cross is the intersection. The cross is where God forgave his children without lowering his standards.”

 

“The next time you think that no one understands or cares, reread the fourteenth chapter of Mark and pay a visit to Gethsemane. And the next time you wonder if God really perceives the pain that prevails on this dusty planet, listen to him pleading among the twisted trees. The next time you are called to suffer, pay attention. It may be the closest you’ll ever get to God. Watch closely. It could very well be that the hand that extends itself to lead you out of the fog is a pierced one. No Wonder They Call Him the Savior.” 

My Take

I found On Calvary’s Hill to be an inspiring read, especially during the Easter season.  It really made me think about the sacrifice of Jesus and what that means to my life.

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335. The Immortalists

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Chloe Benjamin

Genre:  Fiction

346 pages, published January 9, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

The Immortalists opens in 1969 in New York City’s Lower East Side.  The four adolescent Gold children seek out a mystical woman to hear their fortunes.  When she tells each of them the date when they will die, her prophecy irrevocably defines and alters their lives.   Youngest child Simon, who has the soonest death date in his 20’s and who is coming to terms with his homosexuality, escapes to San Francisco.  Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy.  Eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11.  Bookish Varya becomes a noted longevity researcher.

Quotes 

“She understands, too, the loneliness of parenting, which is the loneliness of memory—to know that she connects a future unknowable to her parents with a past unknowable to her child.”

 

“Most adults claim not to believe in magic, but Klara knows better. Why else would anyone play at permanence–fall in love, have children, buy a house–in the face of all evidence there’s no such thing?”

 

“When Klara plucks a coin from inside someone’s ear or turns a ball into a lemon, she hopes not to deceive but to impart a different kind of knowledge, an expanded sense of possibility. The point is not to negate reality, but to peel back its scrim, revealing reality’s peculiarities and contradictions. The very best magic tricks, the kind Klara wants to perform, do not subtract from reality. They add.”

 

“In New York, he would live for them, but in San Francisco, he could live for himself. And though he does not like to think about it, though he in fact avoids the subject pathologically, he allows himself to think it now: What if the woman on Hester Street is right, and the next few years are his last? The mere thought turns his life a different color; it makes everything feel urgent, glittering, precious.”

 

“But Varya disagreed. She knew that stories did have the power to change things: the past and the future, even the present. She had been an agnostic since graduate school, but if there was one tenant of Judaism with which she agreed, it was this: the power of words. They weaseled under door cracks and through keyholes. They hooked into individuals and wormed through generations.”

 

“Character is fate—that’s what he said. They’re bound up, those two, like brothers and sisters. You wanna know the future?” She points at Varya with her free hand. “Look in the mirror.”

 

“In a way, I see religion as a pinnacle of human achievement. In inventing God, we’ve developed the ability to consider our own straits—and we’ve equipped Him with the kind of handy loopholes that enable us to believe we only have so much control. The truth is that most people enjoy a certain level of impotence. But I think we do have control—so much that it scares us to death. As a species, God might be the greatest gift we’ve ever given ourselves. The gift of sanity.” 

My Take

While I found the main premise of The Immortalists to be fascinating, i.e. how would you act if you knew the date of your death, I felt like the book could have done a bit more with it.  Still, it was well written and with compelling enough characters to keep me interested throughout.

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334. Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Arthur C. Brooks

Genre:  Non Fiction, Politics, Cultural

256 pages, published March 12, 2019

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

In Love Your Enemies, author, economist and former president of free market think tank The American Enterprise Institute, diagnoses a problem we all familiar with, namely the polarization of our country into “us versus them.”  His solution is bring Americans back together around principles of respect, kindness, and dignity.  Brooks advocates adopting a culture of warm-heartedness toward our political foes coupled with a vigorous, but respectful, competition of ideas.

Quotes 

 

My Take

I, along with many other Americans, am sick of the partisan rancor and divisiveness that has engulfed our country for the past 20 years.  I have a personal rule never to post anything political on Facebook as there is nothing to be gained by doing so.  I’m not going to convince anyone to abandon their position and will most likely only alienate them from me.  In fact, I adopted a rule that family gatherings which I host are “politics free zones.” This has made for a much more harmonious and loving co-existence.  I’ve also taught my children (now young adults) that ad hominen attacks are for the weak minded and should be avoided like the plague and that they should strive to disagree without being disagreeable.  As such, the premise of Love Your Enemies really appealed to me.   Brooks offers some interesting and practical ideas to improve our civil discourse.  Our country would benefit if more people read his book and adopted its principals.

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